Like so many classics, the fun in Tony Hawk's 3 comes from being given a liberating amount of freedom.

The learning curve is pure genius... A perfect game in almost every way.

A remarkable achievement of proportions we never imagined possible. It has single-handedly changed the way we see all videogame entertainment and the repercussions it should have for the industry are staggering. In one fell swoop your entire games collection has become obsolete, all other games seeming pathetic attempts to waste your time.

To have a game this amazingly good on day one brings tears of joy to our eyes. Everything in Halo is going to make you praise the day you were born.

Half-Life 2 establishes a class-step in gaming we haven't seen since "Elite" on the BBC Micro.

Goldeneye is even better than "Mario 64." Even Oddjob could figure out what that means! A Nintendo 64 without Goldeneye is like James Bond without a vodka martini.

A breath-taking game. It's majestic in scale, beautifully realised and virtually flawless in execution. Scary, shocking, captivating and, in every sense, brilliant.

A thoroughbred that out-strikes the opposition as if it were high on steroids. Put bluntly, we're not gonna get a better beat-'em-up. Tekken 3 is a killer app that is close to perfection.

Half-Life is brilliant in every respect with huge monsters appearing later on, Half-Life gets so spooky it hurts, so frightening people simply watching jump!

Every moment spent in the game world, from the ramshackle village to the far-from-abandoned military installation, is pure, adrenaline-fuelled fun. The game doesn't want to be big or clever - it wants to take you on a roller-coaster ride that leaves you breathless. And it does.

One of the most well oiled pieces of software to be released, ever. This can stand proud next to the likes of "A Link To The Past" and "Ocarina Of Time." You'll be coming back to it again and again for many years to come.

The biggest, best and sexiest racing game ever. What we have here is a gigantic car game that's such enormous fun to play because of three main elements: unparalleled realism, ground-breaking graphics and the chance to spend a lot of money.

SOL's storyline (and this is being generous) is woefully inept, consisting of such high-calibre nonsense that there's absolutely no point following it.

In a complete reversal of modern trends, these are games whose visuals play second fiddle to the sheer wealth, diversity and involvement of tasks on offer, all the while playing on some very tongue in cheek moments and dark humour that even Hollywood's finest would have a tough time trying to rival.

It's about being in one long and deeply worthwhile experience that manages to do the impossible and improve on what has gone before, and then has the confidence to expand itself to a size that defies belief. Pack some sandwiches, it's going to be a long trip.

Everything about Vice City positively reeks of genius.

It could be argued that Halo 2 multiplayer is not only leagues ahead of any other broadband enabled game, but it may even leave the single-player experience in the shadows. The options for online play are far more varied than even Ubisoft's Clancy titles, and the interface and lobby systems represent everything that Xbox Live is truly capable of. [XBM]

The lack of any kind of weather (wet roads isn't a weather condition, merely a clever effect), the frame-skipping problems (it just shouldn't exist!), and the lack of car damage (erm… this is a simulation, right?) drags the score down from the high nineties. Still, this game is without a doubt the best racer on any platform.

The storyline to Majora’s Mask is far superior to that of the first game and besides the camera and the occasional annoyance created by the advance of time, the puzzles, quests, objects and characters that you meet in this game make it a more than worthy sequel.

Madden has always been the king of the hill and this year is no exception.

A masterpiece of handheld gaming.

Short of smacking your knees with a sledgehammer and scraping your face with a cheesegrater, the genre couldn’t really feel much more realistic (and no, none of us plan to stand on one of those daft ‘skateboard PS2 peripherals’ either).

A groundbreaking title that takes the genre in a new and exciting direction. Capcom has once again managed to breathe life into a genre that had been stuck in something of a rut of late.

Damn them… why could they not have implemented the fantastic Player Editor last time? Why couldn’t they have made it easier to get into last time? Why now a better interface, sideline players, cheerleaders and cool boxes?

With all the new franchise options Madden 2004 is a definite must for anyone who likes to get into the nitty-gritty of the game, but otherwise you might be better of waiting for the rather nifty-looking "NFL Street." Overall though, this is the best American football game you can get.

For me, the PC was designed to run Civilization 2. Sid Meier is a God and I'll be playing this for days, weeks, months even!

GF doesn't really go anywhere new so don't expect too many surprises in that field, where it does excel is in keeping to the tried and tested Lucasarts formula of comedy and logic combined to give you the most senseless fun you can imagine.

To accompany the breathtaking graphics is a soundtrack of pure extravagance, and it does wonders to heighten the action and suspense, we can tell you.

In single-player mode Chaos Theory isn't a big step in the evolution of the Splinter Cell franchise, and may seem a repetitive adventure so soon after "Pandora Tomorrow," but this doesn't stop it from being an excellent and visually stunning piece of work.

A work of art, a piece crafted to such infinitesimal detail that every second of the experience has the capacity to cause the player to gasp with exhilarated pleasure from the opening race of the coupe series, right through to the final, devastating Crash Junction on the Burnout world tour.

It's a remarkable achievement and watching Kratos zig-zag throughout ancient Greece destroying everything in his path is a surprisingly empowering experience.

The good things: The ten thousand-odd lines of spoken dialogue. The choice-driven story. The sheer number of quests and mini games. The ability to construct your own lightsaber: green, blue, purple or yellow; double-ended, single blade or even a short and long lightsaber in each hand. This is a game made by Star Wars fans for Star Wars fans.

There's quite literally nothing else about Virtua Fighter 4 which comes close to disappointing as much as the graphics – and considering that the game still looks marvellous, that's the best bad-news-good-news we've ever had to tell anyone, you lucky people!

The sheer scale of the achievement, in originality, variety and technological muscle earns it a 'Best Game Ever' acclamation through sheer muscle, almost regardless of its undoubted and typically Nintendo artistry.

Burnout 3 is as pure a gaming experience as we have had the pleasure of kneeling before for longer than we can remember and we've been doing this for a long time.

There are wow factors on top of wow factors here. Everything from the gorgeous visuals to the way the game plays scream one hundred per cent cool...The multiplayer mode is nothing short of bloody amazing.

Fighting games don't come much more accomplished than this though, and Street Fighter Alpha 3 is one of the most addictive and playable we've ever come across.

From the moment you kick Tony Hawk's 3 into action there’s this overwhelming feeling of perfection.

Those who do most of their gaming alone may well prefer "Far Cry," but as far as multiplayer shooters go, this is the best game on the market, and well worth a gander.

An excellent techno break beat soundtrack featuring the likes of Mix Master Mike and Rahzel puts the ice on a very tasty snow cake. The only thing that really lets this game down is a lack of game modes.

Indeed, it's only once you've actually sat down and experienced every element that SSX3 has to offer that you can see how much more complete it feels against all the other snowboarding games that focus purely on one style of gameplay.

Big and brave Homeworld might be, it doesn't quite add up to the wondrous game we were hoping for. The spectacle of deep space soon begins to look very empty and the battles repetitive.

The masterpiece that is Splinter Cell gets under your skin and stays there for a very long time... The kind of game you do want to go through over and over simply because it is a delight to play around with... A true work of art.

The main drawback though is simply the hardcore nature of the beast, the controls are as intuitively arcade based as Madden and so playing is made difficult if you really don’t know what a ‘screen pass to the wide out is’.

There is no doubt in our minds that this is the finest 3D beat-'em-up we have ever played on any system, but as massive fans of both Soul Edge and Soul Calibur, we can't help but be a little disappointed. [Import]

One of the most ingenious games ever to come from the Nintendo stable.

Such a riotous explosion of colour and astounding visuals tied to a brilliantly useable control system that there’s little in the videogame world (or anywhere else for that matter) that compares to the sensation of playing it. [Import]

We've had a great deal of pleasure at the hands of evolution, even those of us who still swear quite vehemently that Tekken is The Daddy (Bonjour Chris) admitted that it’s a damn fine game. [Import]

The voice acting and sound effects are all spot on and technically the game is far superior to the Xbox version that came out first. The graphics are smoother, the frame rate faster and while a huge Jedi battle can cause slow down, there isn't much to slow the game up from its moderate pace.

Psygnosis has managed to improve WipeOut to such a degree that even those that hated the original will find WO2097 accessible and rewarding to play... WipeOut 2097 is a scorcher!

Xbox owners will always be left with the bitter feeling that this game should have been so much more on their console.

This is progressive programming at its least hurried - considered but hardly revolutionary, improved but still not quite perfect - and aimed squarely at its hungry core audience.

If you feel that your love for games is diminishing, play this and be welcomed back to a Technicolor world of total obsession. If this game was a person, we’d stalk it, search its bins and collect snippets of its hair. [Import]

There are just about enough moves to avoid repetition to keep the combat consistently exciting. The animation on all of the moves is superior to just about every other game of its kind.

Madden fans will find the play selection here a little tricky to get to grips with at first. Gone are Madden’s pop-up menus, but once you get the feel of it NFL 2K is just that little bit more satisfying to play.

Playing Sands of Time can't help but bring back memories of when games cut the crap and gave you simple games that stood out despite lo-fi graphics and painfully synthetic sound. At its heart is everything that made Prince of Persia '89 such a hot property.

If you want to experience something a bit different and something that will genuinely chill you to the bone, take note; you need this game. Eternal Darkness takes adventuring and horror to levels that "Tomb Raider" and "Resident Evil" will never reach.

I know that there will be people reading this thinking the idea is the dullest one in history, but so did I until I played it. Give this a try and you won't regret it - just expect to want to spend more time with your virtual friends than your real ones.

The repertoire of tricks has been massively expanded. There are now rail Ubers and hand plants to experiment with but, most interestingly, you can now perform a board press to link combos together for big points.

Brilliant, plain and simple, and another example of why Nintendo have become so dependant on Rare -- the company produces games that are every bit as good as Nintendo's own, if not better.

This is about as complete a racing experience as you could ask for from Xbox Live.

To say that Madden 2004 is challenging would be a massive understatement. It has an uncanny ability to leave you shouting at the screen when your opponents seemingly know what you are going to do even before you do it.

The problem with this game for most adult gamers is that we remember it only too well! And though a surprising amount of changes have been made for this version, it's still not quite what GBA freaks deserve.

Frustrating as it can be, every fight is a spectacle of chaotic gameplay that will have you absorbed.

Authentic play, televisual presentation and a storming soundtrack featuring Bon Jovi and Andrew WK add up to the finest American Football game money can buy.

Every Shine is a joy to collect, with hundreds of different tasks to carry through... These different tasks mean that the game always feels fresh, and you never know what to expect next.

A game with such huge scope that you can master it at your own pace and have a great amount of fun while doing it, Tony Hawk's Skateboarding will win you over.

There's no denying that Amped is a far more accurate depiction of snowboarding as a sport, but if it's fun you want you can't go far wrong with this.

Looking, sounding and playing as brilliantly as ever, it's such a relief to know that the hype behind this game can be believed. [Import]

Within minutes of starting out, you will find yourself totally immersed in the world inside your PC. No longer will you care about what''s for dinner or how you pay the rent. Instead, you will be worrying about how to raise finances to build catapults, or how best to storm the nearby French castle.

An epic story, accompanied by fantastic visual effects, a comprehensible battle system, and a glorious soundtrack. All in all, probably the first truly emotionally-moving experience ever to grace a console. A grand achievement.

On purely a technical stand point it stands out as looking and sounding like a remarkable achievement but just millimetres below the surface you'll see arguably the most ingeniously crafted game modern consoles have had the pleasure to run.

Everything about Unreal Tournament is spectacular and in your face.

The balance of gameplay is just right, you are fed gently in to the game and by the time it starts getting tough, you are hooked and unable to leave your machine for hours and days on end!

A dark horse of Grand National-winning quality. The stunning graphics, immaculate playability and entirely original handling make for a game like no other. As much as with "Mario 64," Wave Race 64 alone justifies the cost of the N64.

Besides the high quality visuals, real time battle is the key element that is arousing unashamed geeks around the planet for Final Fantasy VII.

While Medal's mechanics are every bit as sophisticated as "Goldeneye," it's clear that PlayStation isn't up to the task in terms of graphics, though that shouldn't be any surprise. What is does have is gameplay by the trench-load, war movie tension and really grizzly violence.

As a party game, PaRappa the Rapper is top notch. It is totally hilarious when you have the cheesy cartoon hip-hop pumped up loud and people get into difficulties trying to follow the lyrics in time.

Nothing comes close to the feeling you get when the Eznite shuts down your systems for the first time and you have to reboot.

Every minute of the adventure is packed with excitement and intrigue as you set out to discover exactly who's behind the mysterious 'accident' that destroyed the station and killed everyone aboard.

The best golf game available.

The implementation of the Hit Stick (use the right analogue stick for some hard hitting defensive plays) is a nice touch and the rest of the game's mechanics have received a subtle overhaul to ensure it plays better than ever.

Offers stunning interpretation of its subject sport and stands as one of the most enjoyable PS2 games to date. Essential stuff.

That's the great thing about Baldur's Gate, not only does it look "the dog's," it provides the player (and multiplayers) with a living, breathing world complete with specific rules which must be adhered to. Now that's magic!

With it’s in-depth and lengthy Career mode and multiplayer that rivals the best the GameCube can offer, Tony Hawk’s 4 should find a home with any true gamer.

This one is a little joy to play that’s packed with an innocence that will fail to raise bile in the mouths of even those for whom fluffy white bunnies amount to nothing more than medical testing fodder.

These breakthrough graphics also add to the enjoyment of the Colony Wars experience in terms of gameplay, because the stunning attention to detail throws you into the battle like you wouldn't believe.

Indeed, the levelling up system that applies to character, weapons and armour gives the title a much needed pace that may have been left wanting by lacklustre narrative.

You MUST experience Resident Evil. Swoon at the graphics, cringe at the gore and prepare your nerves for the ride of their lives.

We'd like to say that Metal Gear Solid 3 is on a par with the original PSone game and in many ways it's much better, but it also feels like it has been left behind in some fundamental areas by the likes of "Splinter Cell."

Initially it won’t take you that long to complete, but with other vehicles to try out and infinite scores to settle it is sure to keep you coming back, even after a long absence.

But be warned, this game is horribly difficult early on and it will take even the most capable gamesplayer an age to complete.

Bone shattering throws, deadly, sword slashes, and plenty of Ryu's Dead or Alive signature moves all combine to create an immensely satisfying experience that feels like a breah of fresh air after "Prince of Persia's" rather limited combat. [XBM]

What began as a second rate Virtua Fighter clone with dubious buster designs has evolved into a dazzling tactical fighter, littered with original and superbly implemented ideas.

We loved this game. Whatever type of player you are, you'll love it. Mario at his absolute best. BUT – and this is a big but (think Jennifer Lopez here) we can't help but feel ripped off.

The first thing that strikes you about this game is the feeling of sheer quality that runs throughout it.

Capcom has produced the perfect interactive movie. RE is horribly, horribly addictive -- it tests your reflexes, satiates your bloodlust, stretches your mind (and temper) and leaves you both thrilled and drained.

So many games nowadays fall short when it comes to life span, but Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 is the very definition of value for money.